


Can't Get Too Much of You

by forelske



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Belly Kink, Canon Compliant, M/M, Weight Gain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 10:44:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6851521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forelske/pseuds/forelske
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m actually naturally very lazy, so I’m going to get a big fat belly. I’m going to be 24 soon and all these pies are going to catch up on me. You’re going to see photos of me with a big belly."</p><p>Louis said this in an actual interview, and thus this disgusting kink fic was born.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Get Too Much of You

**Author's Note:**

> If you aren't into weight gain kink then I suggest you don't read this but y'know live your life. This isn't terribly well-edited and was written very quickly a few months ago so like - if there are mistakes, please let me know. 
> 
> Also warning for a little casual transphobia and biphobia and heteronormativity.

“I’m actually naturally very lazy, so I’m going to get a big fat belly. I’m going to be 24 soon and all these pies are going to catch up on me.” 

Liam is distantly aware, in the part of his brain that sometimes tells him not to tweet things impulsively or jump into relationships or take that tenth shot - the part, that is to say, that he is rather unfortunately bad at listening to – that he is the only one laughing. It doesn’t seem important, and Niall on his left, his legs crossed widely, his knee shaking up and down at a metronomic pace against Liam’s own, acknowledges Louis too. He smirks against the thumb and forefinger he has pressed against his mouth, nervously biting at cuticle skin, and lets out a fast exhalation of air that indicates amusement.

It’s Harry who isn’t acknowledging that Louis has spoken, and that’s not exactly unusual – not due to the tense air that, even now, remains between him and Louis, but because he rarely seems to be paying attention to anything. For the only one of them dedicated to juice cleanses and yoga and #cleanliving, Harry seems to embody most of the stereotypes of a stoner these days, his attention always draw somewhere else. 

Liam remembers the first thing he noticed about Harry all those years ago was his piercing eyes, focused and reading and just the slightest bit hypnotizing. He vaguely remembers reading

in school and can’t get the image of that green light Gatsby stared at out of his head. Nowadays, though, it’s not his boys who see Harry’s intense focus. Instead, his wit and lightning-sharp smile, tongue pressed against the back of his teeth, seems more often directed at Xander or Jeff, Glenne or even Nick. His older, oddly-accumulated posse of people he’s given head to.

Which, Liam considers, might be too broad a category. Since it would, after all, include Louis.

Louis, who seems dissatisfied with the lack of response to his attempt at an original answer to their plans during break. They’re all sick of the exact same question being asked, all sick of denying plans for a solo career, sick of dodging the underlying questions of relationships and babies and the rest of the shit that 2015 brought on. 

“You’re going to see photos of me with a big belly,” Louis continues, shifting to staring directly at the interviewer, who is entertaining him with a soft smile, since apparently Liam’s still-continuing laughter is not enough. Sometimes, Liam thinks he’s spoiled Louis with his constant attention, his never-failing tolerance for Louis’s – well, everything.

This sends Liam into a new set of giggles, high-pitched, something he’s always been a little self-conscious of. He can’t get this image out of his head, this picture of a Louis appearing in some tabloid, clad in his typically sweatpants and sweatshirt – haute couture – with a big old belly sticking out from below his chest, settling above his elastic waistband after a smooth curve outward. It’s comical.

Liam is aware he has a few issues with weight. Not his own, not anymore, but he tried to become educated after fans accused him of being fatphobic a few summers ago. He knows he’s not the best about all that – that PC stuff, he guesses, but he’s trying. 

So he knows, vaguely in an intangible way, that he shouldn’t be laughing. There’s nothing inherently funny about someone being fat, and honestly it wouldn’t usually make him laugh, but. But, well, it’s Louis, and doesn’t that just explain it? It always comes back to Louis at the end of his day, making Liam laugh and act stupid and try new things and – and it’s Louis. 

And the image of Louis with a big belly sticking out, maybe a double chin too, is impossible to get out of his head, impossible to stop laughing at. It’s not funny, it really isn’t, which is why no one else is laughing but, well.

Louis.

So Liam spends the rest of the interview with a loose smile on his face, muscles relaxed as he leans back and presses his right hand, arm swung over the back of the couch they’ve been sat on all day, against Harry’s neck. Rubs it mindlessly, with the kind of carefree tactility that all four of them – well, five – used to embody back when they’d first met.

It’d been amazing, the instinctive way they’d gravitated together, once matched. It was ridiculous and dizzying, how amazing it was to have four boys who he didn’t have to question whether they liked him or not, they showed him with their physical affection.

And well, that wasn’t, strictly speaking, true. He’d spent weeks, months, years, building up the assurance that these boys genuinely liked him, but the physicality, the reassurance of their constant company, was still a distracting and dizzying component. He thinks that’s why he initially resisted – wanted to focus on singing, on competing, on winning. Why he didn’t like Louis, with his freedom from constant thinking and pressure, with his physical intensity – it was too much for Liam, too much all at once. 

Four new boys, but this one most new of all.

But now it was Louis who gave Liam his release, let him sink into a safe haven and bring out that boy that he’d been in 2011 – still tense, but learning to lean into his boys, learning to relax and fall easily into the fame, the friendship, the casual closeness.

So now he sits, brushing at Harry’s neck, and Harry sets a hand on Liam’s thigh and leans forward to answer the interviewer with something vague that doesn’t actually answer the question. Liam can’t help thinking of Louis, thinking of how he wouldn’t have this friendship with his boys – even as their relationships sit in Titanic lifeboats – thinking of Louis’s earlier joke, and giggling still, quietly and away from the mic, so that he feels his cheeks push up and obscure his eyes.

But that’s the problem, ultimately. Liam thinks of it as a joke and pushes it to the side, not thinking of it past the interview, after they’ve left the studio doors and pile into different cars to drive to different homes. 

The album comes out, and for a few weeks Liam’s life is a blur of performances, interviews, promo, the same way that, ultimately, the last few years have been. It’s not until the new year that they settle down, having released History as the third single, that everything begins to slow back down as the boys go their separate ways.. It feels like a new era, but Liam knows it’s actually the end of one. 

It’s at a New Year’s party, as he mingles through the crowd of people he’s met once or twice who expect him to remember them and he can’t find Niall to help him and he’s trying not to drink as much anymore but he is really itching to so he’s more than a little tense when Louis finds him.

“Hey, wanna light up?” Louis calls over the music, leaning in close and holding his glass of champagne far from Liam so his arm won’t get jostled and spill. He’s only about three drinks in, but he doesn’t challenge Liam to go shot-for-shot like he might’ve years ago. Liam thinks Louis is trying to be subtle, but he can tell that he’s purposefully trying to be considerate of Liam’s relationship with alcohol. 

It wasn’t a problem, per se, but it was a bit of a dependency. He doesn’t like to think about his mindset back then too much, gets him back into it, but it definitely was a way of getting him out of his own head. He used to think so much, about what other people thought, about what the boys thought, about the fame, about what he was going to do – and drinking just made them go a little fuzzier, push them to a different part of his mind, so he didn’t have to think so damn much.

Now he thinks he might be using Louis for that, getting drunk off his energy, his exuberance. Liam’s not sure that’s such a bad thing.

“’Course,” he says, putting out his cigarette on the railing of the terrace they’re on. He pushes too hard, and the cigarette folds a bit in half. He doesn’t want to litter, so he holds the butt in his hand until they make it inside and Liam can find an ashtray because the party’s in America and no one here seems to smoke. 

Everyone here smokes weed, though, and that brings Liam to the present, sitting in a well-lit basement and surrounded by four guys he doesn’t know and Louis. It’s always a little more fun to get high with strangers, makes it easier to be around them later. Liam always worries about first impressions, but when you’re both high for your first impression, it’s always a good one.

One guy rolls a joint, sat to his right and wearing a button-down shirt with a paisley print, not quite tacky enough for Harry, but maybe the right amount for Niall to wear out clubbing. Liam likes it.

The guy takes a deep hit, holding it in for longer than Liam ever seems to be able to, and exhales, staring lazily at the smoke that floats from his lips. Hands the joint to Liam. 

After that it’s a bit blurry, just a mess of giggling and slow conversations, laying on the ground and rolling to the side, feeling the cold wooden floors beneath him. Liam always gets so caught up in how much he can feel when he’s high, it’s crazy. There’s so much in the world to feel that he never focuses on. 

Later, he recalls slipping his fingers in-between the buttons of the boy next to him, telling him he liked his shirt. The guy laughs, leans into him a grips the back of his neck, pressing his nose into Liam’s collarbone. 

He laughs, and Liam can feel the fast, warm breath on his chest. “H&N,” the guy says, lips brushing against Liam’s skin, then he huffs a laugh. “H&M,” he correct himself. Liam hasn’t shopped there in years, and he says so.

The guys makes some remark about Liam having too much money for that, and Liam thinks maybe if he weren’t high and he weren’t feeling so amazing, his arm laced carefully against the guy’s waist, that it might have upset him. 

He turns his head to the side a bit with a laugh, and presses a kiss to the top of the guy’s head. He’s always been affectionate and loose when he’s high, and all his muscles urge him to lean into this man’s warmth. 

Their limbs eventually disentangle themselves, though Liam doesn’t remember commanding them to. He does recall a few seconds – minutes? – of rolling on the ground a bit with this boy – had he mentioned a name? something with a “J”? – in an attempt to get free of each other, or maybe to press closer.

He pushes himself off the cold ground – so chilled, was this house weirdly cold? Was it the basement? Liam recalls learning something about warm air rising in school, chalks it up to that. Or maybe it was sinking? He had never been a science student, never been much of a student. 

He finds himself next to Louis and laughs, relieved to see the boy. Louis is such a warm, inviting body to come back to, wraps himself up in his arms and tucks Louis’s head under his chin, thinks of how small Louis seems sometimes, something he forgets a lot because of how big he seems in personality.

He must have said this out loud – of course he did, he remembers the words leaving his lips, just not the message coming from his brain to do so – because Louis bites back an “Oi!”

Louis pushes away and smacks at Liam’s chest before pulling his face into a sharp grin that Liam openly stares at. He likes Louis’s face.

He says this out loud, too, without intent, but it makes Louis smile more, open his lips and bark out a laugh.

They end up alone, at the end of the night, still listening to the sound of arrhythmic beats of drunk feet pounding on the floor upstairs, the thump of a bass filtering into the basement’s atmosphere. Liam isn’t sure where the others went, but he likes hanging out with Louis and is happy to do so alone, happy to have all of Louis’s attention just like Louis has his.

“2016,” Louis mutters, and Liam abruptly turns to him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Louis stops, stares at his fingernails, picks at some dirt under his thumb nail where the nail just barely forms a white line above where it disconnects from the skin. Eventually, he continues.

“Never woulda guessed, a year ago, all this shit.”

“Yeah,” Liam knows what he means. They don’t need to speak more. Louis does, though, words coming out just a little less than clear, dripping from his mouth in slow globs of molasses.

“Just – just – just, I mean, the Eleanor thing, I could’ve, I guess, seen it coming, coulda guessed that four years was our limit, but – but that’s just it, four years, I never would have wanted to guess it, y’know?”

Liam isn’t sure if Louis is actively making sense, but he understands what he means so utterly. He nods enthusiastically.

“And fucking – four of us, anyway, that coulda been guessed, really, guess I shoulda known back then that this was all gonna blow up, gonna – but who would want to?”

He turns to Liam, his face pressed against the floor so his cheek is smooshed flat. “And if anyone were gonna get someone pregnant, any one of us gonna get someone pregnant – Niall, right? Maybe Zayn, but not fucking me.” He bites his thumb nail now, and Liam fuzzily hopes that he isn’t putting the dirty nail in his mouth. “Fucking king of monogamy, I am. Was. Whatever.”

Liam stays quiet. He’s always surprised by how cottony his mouth gets when he’s high. He knows it’s a thing but like, still. It’s surprising. 

The room is quiet, making the bass and footsteps upstairs all the more amplified, a reminder of their quiet haven away from the rest of the party.

 

“Let’s get food,” Louis says, suddenly, his quick mind moving without speech despite how slow his brain goes when he’s high. He stands sloppily and turns to Liam, who should’ve seen this coming. Louis always gets the munchies.

They make their way up the steps, movements heavy and languid as they nearly trip over each other, Louis’s hand a tiny fist gripping onto the back of Liam’s t-shirt, pulling it taut. Slamming out the door and into a private car, the ones that always seem to be where any of them need them, always know when and where to be, they direct the driver.

“Um, Taco Bell?” Liam inquires, voice slow and unsure. It’s a classic, but Louis refutes.

“IHOP,” he says with confidence, talking over Liam to the driver, and then sinks back into his plush seat, slipping his phone out of his pocket.

The thing about being high, Liam thinks, is it always makes things less awkward, fills up all the silences with feelings and sensations, makes a head that might otherwise be stuffed with anxiety loose and dizzy. It forces one to live in the moment, and honestly it’s something Liam wishes he’d tried earlier in his life, might’ve saved himself a few heart attacks.

They cuddle up in the backseat, Liam’s arms wrapped around Louis’s middle, as Louis taps away on his phone, fiddling around on Snapchat and sending Oli a pic of his face, blurry, with Liam’s chin visible in the upper right. He scrawls a “420” across it messily, and Liam’s not quite sure if it’s meant to ironic or if Louis is just That Guy.

They pull into the parking lot and make their way inside. Liam becomes aware of how they look, walking into an American breakfast restaurant just short of three in the morning, Louis dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, two hoodies layered over because he has zero tolerance for the cold, Liam in jeans, a t-shirt, and that wide-brimmed hat that he can’t help thinking might look stupid sometimes. He loves it, wishes he could be effortlessly confident in what he wears, but he always worries it makes him look like he cares too much. That’s probably an indication that he does.

After much deliberation – Louis spends at least a minute just moving the menu back and forth, closer and farther from his face – they order. Liam is a simple man, keeps himself to some fried eggs and pancakes, extra bacon on the side because he’s not immune to the munchies and who doesn’t like bacon?

But Louis – well, Louis is a whole other creature. Louis can put it away when he’s high, and he’s not ashamed to admit it. Orders himself a toasted marshmallow hot chocolate – the most decadent of the drinks he could find, most likely – with whatever the fuck a banana bread French toast, a pumpkin waffle sundae, and a “Bacon Temptation Omelette” are. 

America is something else.

Liam taps his hand against the booth plastic, kicks his feet up on the bench and leans against the wall behind him. He props his head up on his hand, leaning across the table. “Tell me how you feel?” He always tries to be annoyingly deep when he’s high.

“Hungry.” Louis doesn’t give a fuck.

It’s kinda ridiculous the way Louis eats once the food comes, and maybe it’s because Liam had more than his fair share of hits, but he can’t stop focusing on it. It’s not messy or urgent, not when he’s so loose and slow. He carefully places every bite in his mouth, too big, maybe, for the size of his mouth, but it always fits neatly and he chews with such attention and focus. Closes his eyes, caught up in the taste. Even with the weed in his system, Liam can barely taste his own food, too intent on how Louis seems overwhelmed with the taste. Their conversation slows to a stop as the two become focused on their individual missions, one food and one observation.

It’s not just the way he eats, not really, because he can’t ignore how much Louis is packing away. Bite after bite, he works steadily but before Liam is any wiser, the table is down one omelette and a tall stack of French toast.

Louis leans back, eyes closed as he finishes a bite of his sundae and sets his fork down. It’s heavy waffle pieces in a bowl, covered in ice cream that, in turn, is smothered in whipped cream that Louis has mostly already eaten. 

Liam moves his eyes from the bowl, though, and sees Louis, all loose-limbed and –lipped, eyes now half-lidded with content. He sinks lower in the booth, makes a move under the edge of the table to adjust the waistband of his sweatpants, pulling them just a pinch lower. Liam catches sight of Louis’s stomach pressing with bloat against the edge of his t-shirt, framed by his hoodie zippers. 

Liam doesn’t know why he flushes, why he turns his head rather than fulfil his Lad Duty of teasing Louis. Doesn’t know why he can’t seem to comment, feels like he saw something intimate. But Louis has no problem acknowledging, five spoonfuls of ice cream later.

“Ergh,” he moans, stifling a burp. Liam blushes again, confused by his own reaction, blaming it on the fact that he hasn’t lit up in almost two months. “Ooooh my god,” Louis moans, holding onto the syllables like he can’t bear to let them go, still eating neatly as he speaks. His breath is shallow. “I fucking can’t. Gonna burst.”

Liam must be really high, must be severely confused or possibly dying of some condition because his dick twitches, arousal burning warm in his groin. He wants to flag down the waiter and ask for a glass of water, ask why it’s suddenly so hot in here.

“I swear, I wasn’t kidding, y’know?” Louis sometimes assumes people follow all the logical leaps in his head, making little sense without having adjusted to his tendencies. “I am gonna gain so much weight over break, I just know it. Fucking – gonna get a ‘dad bod’, they call it, complete the whole image.”

He’s rubbing his bloated stomach, leaning back enough that Liam can see it even with the table between them. One hand rubs in circles, every once in a while catching on his shirt and tugging it up slightly, revealing to Liam and anyone else in the sparsely-populated restaurant who cares to watch his stomach. It’s always been soft, especially in the beginning, but now it bends out, hard and packed full of food. It sits comfortably above his sweatpants, not creasing in any way, gently sloping back down as his happy trail leads to his pants. 

Liam feels a little dizzy and is holding his head in his hands when he flags down the waiter to ask for the check. 

They leave within ten minutes, Louis holding the back of the bench and the table to pull himself up, like a pregnant woman might. His hands caress his stomach, his t-shirt decidedly tugged up so just a sliver of Louis’s soft, blemish-free skin is visible. 

Liam might pass out. He barely makes it to the car.

 

The next morning, Liam thinks about the night before, thinks to himself,  
, and then thinks about it never again. Louis shoveling food in with the precision of a master, foretelling his potential weight gain? None of that is something to get excited over, so Liam chalks it up as a fluke.

He’s busy, too, in the next few months. Promo combined with production networking – trying to make a space for himself in the music industry outside of One Direction isn’t going to be easy, but he thinks he’s got a good start, a solid foot in the door. 

Of course, it goes without saying that this is all with Louis by his side. Media has started to talk about them as a duo, more than once accidentally referring to Louis’s company as a jointly-owned enterprise. It seems as if there’s no escaping working with Louis in the future, even if he wanted to. But god, he’s genuinely so excited for the future, his future with Louis. It’s not all lies he casually spouts out in interviews – he sincerely is excited about what is to come for the first time in a long time.

He’s newly single, too, reeling from a mutual break-up of a relationship that he thought would last him a lifetime, and he needs time to deal with that. He learns to enjoy his time by himself, not just tolerate it. Learns that he doesn’t have to be with someone to be someone. 

So January to March pass with a freezing cold amalgamation of a few things – it’s the end of One Direction, on one hand, and the start of something new, and it’s hard to balance those two things. Liam thinks he does alright, but he knows he isn’t the best about it, certainly isn’t doing hot at staying close with his boys.

He’s not that worried, really, that the end of the band will mean the end of their friendship, not the way that he can tell Niall is worried. But it isn’t far from his mind. With Harry pulling away more and more and Niall clearly confused about what the break is going to mean, Liam isn’t sure where he stands.

With Louis, he guesses.

As soon as possible, though, Harry fucks off to home shortly and then flies out to LA, and Niall returns to Ireland and then to everywhere else in the world with a considering grin on his face, and Louis gets stuck flying between England and America, trying to be a son and a father all at once, confused with what the fuck fatherhood is and how not to abandon his child like his father did him and, and, and – 

 

And Liam knows all this because Louis calls him crying a few times, Liam who is back in Wolverhampton, imagining Louis’s blubbering face as he sits in Briana’s guest room, talking about past mistakes and not wanting to make future ones.

“I – I fucked up so bad, I did, but this? This kinda can’t be a fuck up, y’know?” His breath is heavy and stilted, coming between gasps and sobs as he tries to control the tears. Louis’s never been ashamed to cry in front of the boys, but he’s done it less and less as the years carried on. He probably wants to seem grown-up, but Liam can’t stop thinking that he’s 24, should be just out of uni and working his first job.

“He’s not a fuck up, not really, cus he’s my little boy. I – I have a little boy, god, that’s so weird to say. God, Liam, you can’t even imagine. I’m a father, and a father is supposed to be there always and I just – I don’t know how to do that, Liam, I haven’t stopped moving in five years.”

And that’s it, at the end of the day, the same thing they’re all dealing with, like when you stop running too suddenly and get sick. They’ve been in constant motion, constant excitement for so long, and now it’s over, so fast, and Liam doesn’t know how to sit at his kitchen table with his mum anymore, lays in his bed wishing it felt more like that in a hotel.

“I wish I could be there,” he says over the phone, sitting on the edge of his childhood bed. “Wish I could help you with this. I could fly out to the States, soon, just give me a few weeks to get sorted at home.” 

He imagines Louis nodding wetly until, after a pause, Louis chokes out, “Yeah.”

So three weeks later, four months into their break, Liam flies out to LA to meet Louis. It’s weird to think that all of them minus Niall, even Zayn, are in one city and aren’t going to meet up. Liam doesn’t like to think about how lonely that makes him feel. He tries not to note how that never would have happened four years ago, tries not to think about how the past two months since the Brits – so stilted and slow, a hesitation in time – are the longest he’s gone without seeing Louis in five years. 

He snapchats a picture of his face, half out-of-frame, half forming a grimace, to Louis, captions it “flyinggggg highhhhhhh” as he waits in first class for the plane to take off. It seems wasteful and unnecessary to take a private jet now that the tour is over, especially now that Harry is fairly regularly forwarding him emails on fossil fuel use.

 

He leans his chair back, unable to stay awake on flights where there is no one else – no crew, no boys, no Sophia – and pops a few Benedryl, grabbing one more than he usually would to counteract the strong-brewed cuppa he’d had that morning.

Before he dozes off, the steward stops by and asks for a drink order. He considers being rich, living it up with some fancy scotch, but ultimately he’s too scared of getting back into his habit of day-drinking.

He orders a ginger ale, which arrives promptly. Drinks about half of it before he leans back, staring out the window with his right cheek pressed against the leather seat. He watches the sky in clear definition, clouds below and beside. He wishes he weren’t so used to it, weren’t so jaded to the miracle that is human flight. It makes him want to tweet something, but the seat’s too comfortable, his body is too heavy, suddenly, to want to search his pockets for his phone. His eyes slip shut.

When Liam wakes up, it’s to the sound of the loudspeaker announcing twenty five minutes until arrival. He fumbles for his phone, checks his texts immediately, resists the years-old urge to check his twitter mentions, and then swipes over to snapchat to check Louis’s reply.

It’s a pic of Louis, his hair down and soft, sitting in the backseat of a car. Most of the picture is his Adidas t-shirt, forming a shadow-less black form with only a logo to distinguish it, as the very top of his head is cut off. His stubble is a few days old by the looks of it, and his lips look soft in their smirk. The black bar running across the screen reads: “oi oiiiiiii!” followed by the middle finger emoji. 

Liam smiles to himself, then shoves the phone back into the pocket of his designated flying pants, loose and soft and comfy. 

The plane lands, and as Liam exits, he follows with the crowd, feeling for once like he blends in. The break has been good for that, at least, giving him an escape from the limelight. He stretches, cracking his back, and swings his tense shoulders around, being careful not to hit anyone nearby, nor to dislodge his carry-on that sits on his left shoulder. Flying has never been Liam’s favorite thing, not without other people.

He goes to collect his luggage, passing by the usual pick-up area. He told Louis he’d take a cab to where he’s staying, so he isn’t expecting to hear a voice behind him.

“OI!” 

Liam startles, almost loses the grip he has on his luggage. Reaffirming his grip and steeling himself, he turns around.

Louis is standing, hands on his hips, about six meters from Liam, looking disgruntled, but in a way that, after years of dealing with Louis’s silliness, Liam knows is an act. A few people turn heads, but not in recognition but rather annoyance at the scene.

“Louis!” Liam isn’t shy about calling back, extending the handle on his suitcase and pulling it on the ground behind him as he hurries to meet his friend. It really has been too long.

Louis runs to meet him, and they collide in a stupidly dramatic hug, one-armed on Liam’s part until Louis’s enthusiasm and commitment to the embrace convinces him to let go of his luggage, pull him in with his other arm and bury his face into the short boy’s shoulder.

Louis is so soft and warm and – and soft.

Soft.

Liam remembers back when he first met Louis, and Louis was just a bit softer, with a cute little tummy that sometimes pressed against the hang of his shirts and an ass that was even more present than it is now and thighs that – well, Liam could go on, remembers having a few crises over his sexuality before he settles down with Danielle and then Sophia, before he was confident in his heterosexuality.

But that’s beside the point – the point is that Liam sinks into this hug with his best friend in the world amid a crowd in LAX, and he can’t help thinking that it feels like there’s just a bit more of Louis. 

Liam remembers vividly the nights on stage, high off the crowd’s energy and the music and the love of his boys, he remembers pulling Louis close and feeling tendons stiff and bones sharp. And now Liam holds onto Louis’s back and feels his hand sink into flesh, feels a soft stomach press against his abs and he’s not sure if he’s going crazy or if Louis’s shoulder, too, is more plush. 

Louis pulls back first – he always does, Liam will commit to a hug for hours – and Liam looks at his face, smile scrunching up his face as he stares at Louis’s reflection of joy, smile wide and genuine. But Liam can’t stop thinking that his face, wrinkled with laughter lines and creases, has a little more softness to it, a little less definition. A dusting layer of chub, just slightly softening the sharp lines of Louis’s cheekbones.

“How ya been?” Louis asks, swinging an arm over Liam’s shoulders as Liam grabs his bag again and follows where Louis steers him. He thinks he might feel a press of softened flesh against his hip as Louis leans into him.

“Good, y’know, just chilling. God, so weird to be home, you know how it is. Real life stopped existing the day we auditioned, and now we’re thrown back in, but it’s all gone on without us.” He pauses, realizing he’s probably said this all to Louis a thousand times during late night phone calls. “But anyway, you know all that, know it first hand, I’m sure, with the twins and all.” He’s not sure if he should bring that up, but nothing is ever off-limits between the two of them. “So how about you?”

Louis makes a guttural noise in the back of his throat, leans back. “Been busy, as you know. Here and back and back here again. Thank god for younger siblings, I don’t know what I’d do if I hadn’t already learned all the basics – the diapers, the bottles, all that shit. Christ, though. It’s so much more than that, though.”

They take an escalator up, and Liam stands a step below Louis as the boy keeps talking.

“Like I’m a father – a father. I know I’ve said this a million times, but god, it’s mad, truly is. Been killing me.”

Liam is listening, really, he is, but he’s also taking his time to make some observations because, well, he wasn’t wrong. Louis had gained weight.

From his position behind him, he has a better view of his ass, and it’s clear that it’s softer than when Liam had seen him last, after months of frantic touring and moving around and now it’s so much – god, Liam feels perverted – rounded and heavier. It sits thick in his skinny jeans, threatening to burst seams that had been tight before the break but now – now Liam can’t even imagine how Louis got them on in the morning. Surely nothing could fit in his pockets. Surely it hurt, having the seams so clearly digging into the meat of his body. 

 

His thighs, too, seemed thicker, pressing together as they always had, curving out from where his t-shirt ended, provided a feminine curve. Louis’s body had always been a bit of a joke in the band, not in any kind of cruel way, but it wasn’t unusual to shove a finger between his legs from behind, to grab onto it in a less-than-platonic manner. He had always been so soft and touchable, but now – now Liam remembers what it was like to question his sexuality over this boy.

And above his pants, spilling over in the sides and, Liam sees as Louis turns back to look at him, in the front a little too, is a plush little roll. Not thick, not heavy, but present. He wants to touch it, experimentally, of course, feel what it’s like. Liam’s never been good at guessing weights – who is, really? – but altogether he’d say Louis had gained about a stone and a half in the past two months, maybe less.

That wasn’t that much, was it? Should he be concerned? Maybe Louis was depressed, maybe he was drinking too much or, who knows, using some other unhealthy means of dealing with this whole fatherhood thing. Maybe – 

“Yeah, yeah,” Louis says, suddenly, ending the story he was telling about his son’s habit of crying at one in the morning on the dot. God, Liam was a bad friend, barely paying attention. He also realizes, with a flush, that Louis was still turned to him and he’d been staring pretty obviously. “It’s not that much, honestly, and I warned you. Been working on this baby for a while.”

At that, he holds his belly, pressing his shirt tight against it so Liam can see its form more clearly. It’s – Liam doesn’t know how to say this – cute? Fascinating? Whatever it is, it’s got his dick’s attention.

The two step off the escalator, or, at least, Louis does. Liam kind of stumbles, half due to managing his bags and half due to the fact that his eyes still haven’t left Louis’s little starter gut.

“Um.” 

Liam’s mouth is very dry, and he feels like he might pass out.

“Dude, chill out,” Louis says, turning away and leading Liam out through the entrance to where a line of taxis seems to go on for miles. They walk over to a Range Rover near the front of the line, clearly requested by Louis, and climb inside. The backseat is plush and smells of leather, but Liam can’t focus on anything other than the feeling of Louis’s leg pressed against his before he scoots over. 

He might not survive the drive. He doesn’t even know what he’s feeling right now, but his dick is definitely not uninterested.

“It just kinda,” and clearly Louis isn’t done talking about it, dammit, isn’t gonna leave Liam alone, “happened, like. You know how I eat, how I’ve always eaten, and my, er, less-than-enthusiastic attitude toward working out.”

Liam can’t stop staring, not sure what part of Louis’s body to focus – his stomach, gently pressed against his t-shirt in folds as he leans forward in seat or his thighs, pressed together but still widely spread out on the seat, thick, or his slightly softer chin that moves gently every time he speaks. It’s transfixing.

“So I,” Liam feels a need to play the good friend, show concern and suppress whatever he’s feeling right now, “I shouldn’t be concerned? It’s nothing like-?”

He cuts himself off because he knows Louis gets what he’s saying, knows that Louis is aware of Liam’s past with drinking, all his body image issues, how hard he worked to lose the weight, all the shit he went through because of it.

Louis leans back, rubbing his stomach gently, clearly very comfortable and familiar with the action. “Nah,” he says, holding the syllable out lazily. “I’m not exactly worried about this. Just a side effect of life, I guess. Living it up.” 

His smile is so content, lazy, and Liam isn’t sure why but he wants that to always be Louis’s face, wants Louis to always have a hand gently pressed against his stomach, tugging up the hem of his t-shirt and revealing, for just a second, a flash of pale, smooth belly. His skin is rounded out, dusted with a happy trail, and suddenly Liam can’t breathe. 

Some part of his brain is working overtime to justify what his head – and his penis – are doing right now as he sits, lightheaded and drunk on the sight before him. It’s not coming up with anything.

“Um.” His mouth is working so hard, gasping at air in an attempt to make words that will one, not make him seem stupid and two, not makes obvious how overwhelmed he is. His eyes are still aimed at Louis’s gut despite his intentions to move them away. “Yeah. Totally.”

Louis smiles back lazily and arches his back as he raises his stomach up higher to meet his hands, still rubbing at his belly. 

Liam might cry.

“This might seem kinda ill-timed, given the conversation,” Louis says, leaning forward with a little effort – a small grunt escapes his mouth and Liam feels his dick twitch harshly – “but can we get lunch? I’m starved.”

He patted his stomach twice, and it produced a sharp smacking noise, even through the fabric of his shirt. 

“That, um. Sounds good.” Liam was aware he was not being subtle. He couldn’t generate the energy to care, not when so much of his efforts were going toward resisting the peculiar urge that had arisen to feel Louis's tummy. To pat it, to squeeze it, to rub it - Liam didn't know why, but he needed to feel its solidity and reality and weight in his hands.

"In-and-Out?" Louis asks, before ignoring any response of Liam's and moving forward to inform their driver of the decision. Liam tries not to look at how Louis’s stomach folds over, pools into his lap as he hunches over and covers parts of his thick thighs. 

“Sounds good,” Liam mutters, leaning back and throwing an arm over his eyes. He needed more sleep or a Xanax or something right now. 

 

It becomes obvious why Louis gained so much weight when they step into the restaurant. 

Liam had forgotten that Louis can stress-eat like a fucking pro, forgotten the night after Zayn left when Louis ate an entire pizza himself and left himself incapacitated, groaning and miserable and sated.

It seems his capacity had gone up since then.

Liam watched, much like one watches a car crash, with morbid fascination, as Louis made his way to the front of the line and ordered three double burgers and extra large fries and a drink. They sat down, Liam with a double burger and fries, looking humble and controlled in comparison, which was ironic considering he was about to jump out of his skin.

He’s hyper-aware of the situation, how it looks, hyper-aware that people may look at Louis and judge him, and it both bothers and excites him. It’s strange, but his dick seems to be reminded of the times he and Sophia would play around a bit in public, just playful teasing, but god, he got off on it.

His dick is not exactly uninterested right now.

The baby must not have helped Louis’s stress-eating habit, must have sent him into a spiral in which, unable to find escape from real life obligations and responsibilities, he’d found a haven in food.

“Hungry?” Liam asks, feeling his blood in his ears. He’s not sure what’s happening right now, is attuned to the fact that, at the moment, he is intricately sexually attracted to his best friend. He’s less than exactly sure what to do about that, how to understand what it means.

“Mmm,” Louis says through a mouthful of burger, tearing into it the second his ass touches the chair. He’s slumped forward, looks cozy and comfortable, and Liam can’t resist sitting down in the bench next to him, sidling up to his warmth in a way that he hopes Louis will read as casual. “Yes, I told you I was absolutely starved. Haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

That’s not exactly an uncommon sentiment for Louis, that not eating for four hours is torture, but Liam can imagine he’s quite more used to it now, far from the hectic and unpredictable schedule of touring and promo, instead able to laze about a house and make himself comfortable, spoil himself with as many snacks and meals as he pleases.

Liam’s just happy to see Louis happy. He was so scared, what with the crying phone calls, that he’d find Louis in a similar slump to the one he went through back in April. Nights out on the town to fill up a void left by a best friend and long-term girlfriend, then even more dependency on alcohol when it turned out his wild nights with just a few less condoms than necessary had changed his life.

And if Louis’s filling that void with food now, Liam’s just glad to see it’s not drugs or alcohol or anything else that washed-up celebs like them - Liam enjoys, ironically, the term, is happy to take ownership of it - end up in rehab for. A few pounds was better than a lifetime struggle.

“You, um,” Liam doesn’t know why he feels the need to address it, needs it put out into the conversation for the sake of - of who knows. But he wants to see how Louis responds, see him flush or fidget or - he turns toward Louis, slinging an arm over the back of the booth and allowing Louis to tuck himself into his side the way the two of them always have. “You really did gain some weight, man. Looks, um, looks good.”

It really does, is the thing, makes the harsh angles of Louis’s face all soft and inviting, friendly and creased with laughter lines. 

Louis blushes, ducks his head down. He leans closer to Liam though, and the soft expansion of his stomach brushes against Liam’s side, rising and falling against his skin with the quickening motion of his breathing. He looks nervous, embarrassed, but a smile is on his face. It makes Liam recall the way Niall gets when he’s anxious - all smiley and giggly but ready to explode. But Louis looks - proud? Not quite, maybe content? Not upset, for sure. 

He almost looks excited, and Liam is not sure if he’s reading the situation wrong to say that Louis might be excited in the same way he is, might be aware of the great big thing that floats between them.

“Yeah, um, you’re not wrong.” Louis fiddles with the hem of his t-shirt, doesn’t quite lift it up, but pulls it away from his skin as if hoping it was just caught in a crease and will fall back down and hang free, skimming over the convex swell of his belly. It doesn’t, just gets pulled a little farther up his stomach, getting caught on top of his stomach and below, framing its shape and making it seem all the larger. “Something like, I’m not sure, I think it’s approaching two stone? God, I look like such a pig.”

At that, he goes pinker, turning his face away from Liam. It doesn’t stop him, however, from reaching for his burger, still the first one, which he’s about halfway through.

“No, no,” Liam says, moving his hand down from the back of the booth and to where Louis’s shoulder meets his neck, gripping onto it. “Like I said, it looks good. You look, um. Healthy.”

Liam had been an awkward child, but he thinks this may be the peak of his social awkwardness. 

“Yeah, I’m not actually really self-conscious about it, actually. I’m owning it, y’know? Always had them hips, anyway, now just got a little more.” He grips his sides, where love handles had been subtly settled over the tight waist of his jeans but now seem infinitely thicker and heavier in his small hands. Liam stares openly. “More cusion for the pushin’, right? Not that I’m getting all that much pushing.”

He adds the last part as an afterthought, and though it’s said quietly, he makes eye contact with Liam and holds it. Liam can’t be imagining this tension. 

“That’s good, man,” Liam says with a laugh, hoping his casualness doesn’t some across as forced as it seems to him. He decides the best way to handle this - and his inability to come up with more to say, come up with anything to focus on besides Louis and his stomach and him eating three burgers and him licking his fingers and shoving fries in his mouth, Louis owning his weight and loving it, Louis turning pink at Liam mentioning it. 

“Hey, you write any shit recently?”

Not his most subtle subject change. Or maybe it is, maybe that’s his problem.

But Louis goes with it, rolls into a new topic easily. That’s how it always is with them, so easy and smooth, never an awkward moment (minus Liam’s current crisis), no matter what’s happened, it’s been years since Liam felt like he couldn’t tell Louis something. It’s kind of how they are with all the boys, but there’s just something about Louis - something about his easy-going nature, his teasing, his pranks, his asshole remarks - that makes Liam feel like, at the end of the day, there’s no one else he’d rather spend his free time with. 

The last two months, while relaxing and a much-needed break, had been just a little bit of torture.

The conversation comes so naturally, and Liam is so focused on his lunch, that he doesn’t even pay attention to Louis next to him beyond what he’s saying. It’s twenty minutes later when he looks over and feels dizzy again.

Louis is leaning back in his seat, his ass almost falling off the edge of the booth, and his legs are spread wide, his left one pressing against Liam’s own leg. His food is all gone, minus a few fries, and his stomach looks distended beyond simply the weight gain he’d experienced. It bulges out from below his chest, a smooth curve that Liam can’t help but stare at. It’s transfixing. But it’s not just the shape, not really, not when the bottom of Louis’s stomach is poking out the bottom of his t-shirt, revealing where his skinny jeans are leaving stiff red marks where they press against his extra flesh. His arms are settled on top of his belly, happily sitting there on the small shelf forming. Louis shifts, then, eyes closed in content, and grabs at the area below his belly, searching for his belt loops. Not needing a belt, certainly, he pulls up on them, appearing to try to fit his jeans over the bottom his stomach. He doesn’t succeed.

Liam clears his throat, and Louis startles just a little. “Wanna get out of here?” 

Louis ends up working himself into the car gently, practically cradling his belly in his hands, trying to avoid disturbing it. In comparison to its swollen his state, his hands are dwarfed, looking like they can’t possibly hold its weight.

Even with his care, he jostles a few burps out as he gets into the vehicle, flops down on the seat with relief, and, as soon as Liam closes the door, reaches underneath his belly - for there truly is an underneath, a shadowed area where his stomach curves in below his bellybutton - and undoes his pants button. It takes a few tries, pulling the flaps of his jeans together first in order to even make it possible, and even then the fat creasing itself as he does this makes the job hard. 

It releases, and Louis visibly relaxes with a sigh, looking for all the world like the most content, spoiled man in the world. Liam wants to spoil him more, pamper him, and he’s not sure why. 

Louis pulls down the fly, another task that involved the pulling together of the two sides of his tight, tight pants, and upon unzipping it and revealing the top of his Calvin Klein underwear, his hands move back up to his stomach. They rub gentle circle onto his soft flesh, moving it just slightly, as it seems largely packed full. Liam is doing his best to watch it all from the corner of his eye, but, upon figuring out that Louis had closed his eyes in pleasure, he turned to face him. 

Then, suddenly abandoning his technique of smooth motions, Louis shifts his hands, grips his fat, plush stomach, and jostles it starkly, surprising a wet belch out of himself. 

“There we go,” he says, sitting up a little straighter. “Jesus, these are new pants, too.”

The rest of the ride is comparable to the feeling of having one’s hairs plucked out one-by-one while being forced to pretend it isn’t happening. Liam carefully schools his face as they drive to where Louis’s staying, pretending that Louis is not sitting beside him in a way that is blatantly exciting him, filling his heart with flutters, his skin with prickles, and his mind with a numbing static. 

Louis is literally not a foot from him, all spread-out and satisfied, his new fucking pants unbuttoned to make room for his expanding stomach which peaks out from below his t-shirt hem. Liam can’t believe Louis literally ate himself out of new pants. Liam feels as if he might literally die in this moment.

Somehow they make it to the hotel without an incident of either Liam attacking Louis or him jumping out of a moving vehicle on a highway. Liam is a little proud of this.

They arrive, and Louis offers to help Liam carry his bags from the trunk to the room, but Liam declines. It’s a polite offer, not a real offer anyway because one, Louis is essentially incapacitated at the moment, and two, it’s Louis, and Louis has never, no matter how much he likes a person, genuinely wanted to help them carry bags. 

So they stand outside the car, Liam grabbing his suitcase and duffel bag from the back as Louis subtly stand next to him, his crotch facing the car, as he attempts to rebutton his pants. There are grunts involved. Liam briefly considers enrolling himself in some sort of group therapy. He doesn’t know what it would be for, except maybe Sexually Frustrated by Best Friend’s Weight Gain Anonymous.

Because that’s the thing. Liam isn’t always the most observant, but he always tries actively not to lie to himself, and he’s very aware of the fact that yes, since he arrived at LAX he has been experiencing feelings of sexual arousal, and yes, they are caused by Louis, and yes, they are exacerbated by Louis having gained weight and stuffing himself silly at an In-and-Out. 

But here’s the thing, what’s been running through Liam’s head the entire ride, as they chose not to speak and the car was filled with only silence and Louis’s quiet moans and stifled burps - Liam’s never had a thing for overweight people. He’s vaguely aware that this is a thing that some people like, but that was always other people. He isn’t particularly disturbed by the thought, doesn’t think it’s that strange to be what he’s heard called a “chubby chaser,” but that’s never been him. He’s spent his entire life dating skinny girls, fucking skinny girls, and well, that’s the second bit, isn’t it?

Girls.  
Liam’s never liked a boy, skipped right over the questioning phase by constantly dating girls and maybe it’s catching up to him now, all at once. Maybe he’s finally single, so his penis is trying to experiment, figure out if it could be into other penises. 

Maybe it’s because Louis is in his close proximity and fairly openly bi. Maybe it’s because they’re both single and Liam isn’t exactly unfamiliar with the noises Louis makes when he comes, not on such a small tour bus, not when Louis and Harry had The Thing for a full year and felt the need to constantly be touching. Maybe it’s because Liam hasn’t been single for this long - going on seven months - in years and doesn’t know what to do with himself when he’s the only one touching his dick in the shower every morning.

Or maybe it’s just Louis and all that he is.

“You ready?” Louis says, looking up from his zipper, which he has just successfully re-zipped, and gesturing toward the hotel entrance. They make their way inside, Liam struggling slightly with his bags and Louis doing less than no work. Liam wouldn’t have it any other way.

They get in the elevator, make their way to the room, and Louis collapses onto the couch, making quick work of undoing his pants again. Upon unbuttoning them, he roughly tugs them down so there's less pressure on his gut.

Liam drops his bag and pretends to fiddle with a few zippers around it, trying to ignore the show in front of him.

“Liam,” Louis whines, which is not uncommon. Neither is Liam's instinctive reaction, which is, of course, to give Louis whatever he wants. “Get over here.”

He puts his arms out in a lazy gesture to join him on the couch, and Liam walks over, toeing his shoes off as he goes. “What is it?” 

Louis doesn't bother answering, ignores that Liam even spoke, instead, as soon as Liam is within a foot of him, he pushes off the couch with no small amount of effort and grabs onto Liam, pulling him down so his hips were crookedly resting on Louis's lap, his arms bracing Louis's small body and one foot still on the ground. 

Liam tries to ignore the firm pressure of Louis's distended stomach, radiating warmth, underneath his body, but it's hard for him to focus on anything else. He can't relax, hyper aware of every place that he's touching Louis.

He hadn't noticed, but Louis had softened in his chest, as well, his t-shirt stretching gently over the two mounds that poke out, peaking with nipples slightly visible and touchable through the fabric. There's something undeniably feminine about it in combination with his hips, and Liam is secure in the fact that he can always excuse any questions of sexuality on this, but he's fairly sure it extends beyond that.

He pushes himself off of Louis and tumbles onto the couch beside him. They're so close, suddenly, and Liam is so close to Louis and Louis's body which is simultaneously so small and yet growing, a soft expanse that Liam wants to explore so badly, and their faces are only a few inches apart, which isn't significant except Liam keeps staring at Louis's lips and -

And Louis leans in a bit, tilting his head in a challenge, and Liam rests his hand on Louis's thigh, overly aware of how his hand, fingers spread and large, doesn't even cover the diameter of his thick thighs, squeezed into the denim of his jeans like sausages, and -

And Louis closes his eyes, puts a hand on top of Liam's, Liam who suddenly remembers Louis's unbuttoned pants and is hit with a wall of arousal and want, of confusion as to the implications of being so close to your best friend when his dick is so  
, sitting dully below his full belly, and Liam doesn't want to make things weird but Louis's eyes are closed and he is so close and Liam isn't gay but he might definitely want to kiss Louis right now and -

And then Louis's phone goes off, the notes of “Hips Don't Lie” breaking the anticipating silence of the room, audibly killing the atmosphere. 

They both startle apart, separating body parts and avoiding eye contact. Louis immediately reached for his tight back pocket, pulling out his phone and answering the call.

“What?” he answers, slightly harsh in his moment of tense energy. “Yeah, sorry, hello. No, no, it's fine. Nothing.”

He pauses, listens. Liam doesn't know what to do with himself. 

“Yeah, okay, that sounds good. Yeah, he's here, we're just at the hotel. Mhmm. Okay. Yeah, cool, seeya soon. Adiós.”

He turns to Liam. “Is it cool if we go see Briana and Freddie now?”

And that's that.

 

The rest of Liam’s stay - a total of two weeks - is largely uneventful. He’s so glad to get to know his godson - well, what there is to know when he’s so young. 

And he’s able to use this fatherhood of Louis’s to move away from his attraction to him, ignore the way he feels when he watches Louis drink three milkshakes in a row and lay in a belching mess, looking cozy and warm and thick in his sweatshirts and sweatpants. They avoid events like the first day’s, especially since Louis has all but abandoned real pants, opting for loose, large clothing that leaves him with room to grow. The thought that Louis has thought this through, is so consciously aware of how much he eats and how much weight he might gain, makes Liam want to space out for a few hours, wrap a calloused hand around his dick.

And there’s plenty of that, too. Plenty of mornings after running into Louis sitting at the kitchen table, a hand atop his bloated stomach and a fork mindlessly moving toward his mouth when Liam rushes to the shower to shove a fist in his mouth as he gets off, leaning against the wall and trying to push images of Louis out of his head and failing.

And then there’s a night they spend in, getting drunk off cheap beers and each other, watching  
and  
when Louis downs a six pack and a half, talks about how his tolerance went up with his weight and slaps his drunk, full belly. Packs away seven tacos before even pausing, but that’s not the worst of it.

The worst is when they switch DVDs, and Louis gets up with a grunt to go change them. He removes the one, puts it back in its case despite the fact that he has never before cared to be neat about this kind of shit, and reaches up on the shelf to grab the next one.

His sweater, only a little tight compared to his other clothes, only faintly outlining his pudge on a normal day, is pulled up by his arms, and when he puts his arms down, the sweater’s hem comes to rest just a little above his pants, held up by the fat of his stomach. The bottom of his gut is fully on display, and Louis doesn’t seem to notice, carrying on getting more popcorn and sitting down on the couch, too close for Liam when he can still see the flash of pale pudge. Even his pajama bottoms he’s wearing seem to have become tight, letting a thick roll dip out over their waistline.

He misses the first half hour of the movie until Louis puts a blanket on.

And then there’s the sexual tension, every time they touch or cuddle or play-fight, and Liam is starting to think maybe it’s been there all along, maybe it’s not some new occurrence. Maybe he only just because aware of his attraction, but nothing about their interactions have changed, so Liam wonders if maybe there’s always been this intangible  
between them. 

He wants to ask Louis, ask him if he’s going crazy and totally imagining things or if sometimes Louis is just a little too needy for his attention, if sometimes he stares just a bit too long at Liam’s lips.

But Liam never asks, and then he heads back home on a private jet, and Louis stays in LA with his kid, and they’re living different lives again. 

He's back for a week before he gets a call from Louis, who is drunk out of his mind after a late dinner at a Mexican restaurant with some producers after a day full of meetings.

“Liam,” he slurs, sounding excited and urgent all at once, “how  
you?” 

Louis always sounds so genuine and heartfelt when he's drunk, opposing his usual sarcastic and, sometimes, quite frankly, obnoxious behavior. But Liam's gotten used to it after all these years and isn't surprised by the boy’s shift like he was when they first met. The first time he's gotten drunk with Louis, who, at the time, seemed to hate Liam, Louis had told him he had pretty eyes.

And well, Liam hadn’t known what to do with that.

“I'm good,” Liam replies, not terribly invested in the conversation as he unloads the dishwasher in his apartment, “how ‘bout yourself?” 

“Gooood.” Louis speaks slowly, like a drawn out sigh of words, and it's a bit relaxing to listen to, his casual, lazy language. “Y’know what I really am, though?”

“What's that, Lou?” 

“Fucking full,” Louis says in almost a drawl, slurring his syllables. 

Liam almost drops a plate.

“Is that so?” He aims for casual and falls short.

“Always seem to be, these days,” and Liam can't disagree with that. “I just get so- I dunno, stressed? Anxious? It just chills me out, to eat, or to smoke, but I dunno, I'm actually trying to quit, what with a kid around and everything. Christ, all that makes me just want to eat a fucking KFC bucket on my own, Jesus.”

Louis can talk for days, sometimes has, honestly, and Liam really can't deal with this.

“You're quitting, man? That's great, how's that?”

“Ugh, all it's done is make me all nerves and fidgeting and, like, I get such cravings and all I want to do is eat my problems away.” Drunk Louis has a one-track mind, and Liam is more than a little uncomfortable right now. “Like today, aw man, I wanted to smoke so bad, fucking itching for it, but I didn't! Fucking ate five tacos instead, bruh, it's fucking ridiculous what I can put down.”

“That's, um, that's a lot, yeah.” Liam has sat down at the kitchen table and is picking at his cuticles maliciously.

“Nah, that was my appetizer. Got two burritos, some nachos, this giant ass margarita, and a fucking - shit, what's that dessert? The fried thing?”

“That's really something, Lou.” There's a lump in Liam's throat that he has to speak around, a clog that threatens to ruin a friendship if it allows him to speak everything on his mind.

“Yeah, dude, I'm so stuffed,” Louis practically moans, and Liam can imagine him clearly leaning back, stretching his arms above his head lazily, and scratching the pale strip of flesh between his shirt and pants that would appear when his arms lifted above his head. “I feel like I can't move, might just fall into a food coma in the couch, don't wanna move. Might puke if I do.”

“Please, please,  
do not puke when you are on the phone with me.”

“Puh-  
I would never. I'm a pro at this, sleep on the couch stuffed silly full of food more nights than not.” And yeah Liam kinda knew that from his trip, but  
to hear Louis admit it in his drunk, chilled-out voice, all languid and blurred, Liam's dick was not inattentive.

“Yeah, um, that’s, um--” Liam isn’t exactly a poet, but he usually considers himself a little more eloquent than he is in this moment. It’s just-- a whole lot. To think about. “Make sure you drink some water, babe. And um--” 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m not hardly drunk enough for that kinda concern, alright, you know me. Don’t act like we haven’t seen in each other in the worst of fucking states.” 

Liam hears the faint sound of a stifled burp from Louis’s side of the line. Liam presses the heel of his palm against the zipper of his pants, which is currently bent outward from the pressure of his hardened dick. He doesn’t press too hard, merely acts with a vague thought in the back of his mind, just enough feeling to provide himself with some distraction, not enough to give himself a gay crisis. 

Or a few different crises.

“Okay, okay, just, y’know, trying to take care of ya’.” His voice sounds distant as he stares into space, eyelids feeling heavy and hand still occupied by attending to his hard-on. 

“Ha! Bit late for that, babe,” Louis replies. “I’m all grown up, don’t need that.”

“Well, in that case…” Liam trails off, trying to make it sound more like a purposeful taunt and less like his own spaciness at the image currently in his mind. He can’t think of anything except this picture Louis has put in his mind of the other boy, sitting on a couch in a lavish LA hotel, immobile due to the heavy weight of his stuffed stomach, a too-tight t-shirt stretched thin across his gut and forced up, revealing a pale strip of flesh under its hem, taut and thick. “I’ll talk to you later? Should be letting you get to sleep.”

“Mmmm,” Louis responds, sounding distracted, followed by a grunt and the sound of movement. Liam imagines him adjusting himself, trying to find comfort beneath the growing weight of his stomach, stuffed full with all the generous amounts of food Louis had provided it. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll let ya’ go. Ta-ta.”

The line clicks off.  
Staring at his fingerprint-covered screen in his palm, Liam ponders the conversation he’d just had. Tries  
to look at anything other than the shape of his half-hard dick in his jeans. He can’t keep ignoring this.

 

But he does, is the thing. Liam ignores it with a powerful determination worthy of praise. He talks to Louis, sure, but carefully drives the conversation in avoidance of subjects like sex, food, weight, and so on. He’s not sure when all those topics began being part of one big category in his head - Things that are Causing Weird Reactions in his Pants When Associated with Louis Tomlinson - but he knows he needs to disconnect those ideas. He can’t keep seeing Louis eating on Skype and having to think of grandmothers just to avoid an erection. That’s no way to live.

So yeah, it’s less than ideal, but he’s working with it. It’s not impossible to ignore, not really. Not, at least, until he picks up a tabloid and falls apart again.

It’s a few weeks since his awful phone call with Louis, and he’s in a doctor’s office, waiting to get called in to see if he can get a prescription for some antibiotics. He’d been feeling under the weather recently and has been chalking it up to strep. Under normal circumstances, his years with One Direction had taught a valuable lesson in avoiding tabloids, and he never would have picked up a copy of some trashy celebrity gossip magazine, but it’s the only option other than Highlights Magazine and - well, Liam is over the age of ten. 

So he’s mindlessly flipping through this magazine, only mildly excited at the prospect of finding out who wore it better and who Taylor Swift was supposedly dating this week, and his eyes unwillingly stop on a two-page spread titled, “Dad Bods.” It’s some mindless analysis of male beach bods, focusing on dads who have “let themselves go,” boring drivel except--

Except there, in the lower right hand corner, is a little box around a picture of Louis.

It’s captioned, in white letters against the blue part of the background picture of some larger star, “A new father, Louis Tomlinson, 24, ex-One Direction member, shows off a new, pudgier body at the beach with his pals - looks like fatherhood has been treating him a little too well!”

But Liam doesn’t read the words, not for a few minutes at least, not until his mouth stops being so dry and his eyes so wide as he stares helplessly at the image. It’s one thing to have seen Louis gorge himself on food in ever-tightening clothes, but without clothes? Liam didn’t know what to do with that.

Louis’s in a pair of navy blue trunks, ones that Liam remembers from a few beach trips the two of them had taken together over the years, and that’s part of the problem - how old the shorts are. Because they’re clearly not sized to contain all the Louis there is in the world now. They cling, wet, to his wide thighs, spread without wrinkle across the thick, cellulite-ridden skin of his legs. That’s the least scandalous aspect, however, as Liam’s eyes move up.

Louis’s stomach sticks forward, a few inches more than Liam remembers it, a little less perky too. The tight waistband of the shorts forces his gut to surge forward against the material that, because of said belly, he clearly had to place under his stomach rather than at his waist. The soft flesh of his belly, though, doesn’t merely stick out, however, it also flops, just the slightest bit, over the waistband, folding it over and hanging a little lower than Liam recalls. Above that, his nipples poke out, small and pink and perky at the tip of two mounds of fat on his chest that Liam doesn’t remember being quite so prominent before. They’re like two little packets of flesh, sitting happily atop his tummy, soft and biteable. In the picture, too, Louis is twisted around, evidently speaking to someone who is cropped out of the photo, the motion causing a thick wrinkle in his side as his fat heavily folds over itself. 

It takes the nurse three tries to get Liam’s attention.

 

After his appointment, throughout which he is wildly out of it, Liam runs to the pharmacy to drop off a prescription for antibiotics and, if he happens to grab a copy of the magazine he flipped through at the doctor’s office, no one needs to know.

It’s later, sitting at home in front of a google news search for “louis tomlinson beach,” that Liam decides that maybe he needs to address this. He spent about five minutes looking at just one of the multiple pictures the paps had gotten of him. To be fair, though, the picture was from behind, showcasing both the beginnings of back fat folds and Louis’s arse, two plump cheeks distinct beneath the wet fabric of his bathing suit. Liam’s mouth practically watered.

So he opens another tab, still in the incognito window he has open, and types in, “aroused by” before pausing. Because what is it exactly that is arousing him?

Liam had never been attracted to bigger girls, nor is he now attracted to bigger guys - because this whole Louis thing is making Liam think that maybe he is less than 100% not gay and maybe he would sleep with Christiano Ronaldo if given the chance. There’s just something about Louis - Louis full of food, stuffed silly, perpetually gaining weight - that makes Liam constantly want to stick a hand down his pants and get himself off with a rough, calloused palm as quickly as possible.

He finishes the sentence “aroused by weight gain” because that’s about as close to an accurate description of what he’s feeling as he’s gonna get, and thus begins his three hour dive into the dirty depths of the fetish side of the internet. 

As it turns out, “feederism” is a thing, and Liam doesn’t know what to do with that piece of information. Because there’s a whole culture here, a whole support system for people who get off on weird shit, and Liam doesn’t know if he thinks that’s okay or not, because isn’t it unhealthy, fundamentally? Isn’t it bad for Louis, mentally and physically, that he spends most nights stuffing himself full of caloric food until he can’t move in order to distract himself? And then therefore isn’t it wrong that the mere thought of that can make Liam hard in his pants?

He gets off twice in the three hours he spends investigating the subject.

So it turns out this is a Thing. It might also possibly maybe be a Thing for Liam. A lot. And he also maybe a lot couldn’t read a single article about this whole kink business without imagining Louis, Louis laying back with his dome of a belly rising up above him and Liam fucking into him, Louis above him, riding his dick while stuffing his mouth full of burger after burger, Louis fucking into him, his stomach, heavy and round, brushing against Liam’s abs with every thrust. Just pictures of Louis, not even sexual, just imagining the boy’s small, compact body, chubby and stuffed full of food and groaning and burping and-- 

Liam has only had very vanilla sex with his past girlfriends, excepting his tendency to like it when Sophia and he got a little frisky in public. He kind of wants to cry at how hard his dick gets, how fast he comes after a few strokes as he imagines Louis in his head.

Liam isn’t even gay, isn’t even into penis, isn’t-- well, all that seems a little less than true now, thinking of every past interaction he has ever had with Louis, honestly. Thinking of how obsessed he was with Zayn kissing him that one time, how fixated and insistent he has been on his heterosexuality and possession of a girlfriend. Now, single and in the midst of a bit of a crisis, Liam has a second to reflect on his relationship with men and well, he wouldn’t exactly consider himself opposed to the image of James Corden fucking him in the ass. And maybe that’s pretty gay, now that he thinks about it.

He should be more surprised, but all he wants to do is call up Louis and ask him if he was serious that one time he said they should move into together and if he was aware that they might be a little bit in love with each other. 

As it turns out, he doesn’t need to resist this urge, as Louis ends up calling him first. 

“Payno!” Louis exclaims as soon as he hears the click of Liam answering, before he even has a chance to greet him. “Do you know what you’re doing tomorrow?”

“Um, I mean, I think I was--”

“Nope, trick question, you are taking the first flight out to LA because you will never  
who I got us a fucking writing sesh with…”

 

So somehow, while in the middle of a sexual crisis, Liam ends up on an eleven hour flight headed toward the exact person who sparked said crisis. He downs 3mg of Xanax the second he gets his bags all settled, not about to fuck with taking this flight either awake or sober. Ultimately, he ends up dead asleep for eight hours of the flight, and the rest trying to make sense of 

 

As it turns out, aside from their first meeting at the airport, Liam faces few difficulties in interacting with Louis, who, apparently, still insists on picking him up from his flight, possibly to simply enjoy the high of being in LAX without getting papped. 

Liam struggles, upon seeing him, to not, in his newfound awareness, immediately latch onto Louis in a fierce hug and never let go. They do hug, but Liam resists the urge he has to press his entire body aggressively against Louis’s small, thick frame, biting at the new softness around his jaw that developed in the month they’d been apart. His face, still with strong cheekbones, is noticeably more rounded, a soft double chin appearing every time he moves his face downward to check his phone or zip up his hoodie - a difficult endeavor, now, with the hoodie being a year old and his gut being but a few months in existence. It gets a little stuck at the middle, where his stomach protrudes the most, but he manages to get it all the way up with little difficulty. Liam tries not to stare.

But then life gets a bit faster, and Liam has a lot more to focus on than just Louis and Louis’s body and Liam’s possible gayness.  
, says the tiny Harry in his head that repeatedly advocates against biphobia. 

Liam and Louis are suddenly constantly busy, writing and recording and having meetings, and it turns out Louis has been getting a lot done in LA with his production company, and Liam has a lot to catch up on. So he’s a bit preoccupied for a few days, wondering in his free moments how on earth Louis was able to do all this shit with a fucking baby. 

There are a few moments, of course, when they pull through a drive-through in a Range Rover and Louis orders two double combos for a snack that Liam has to question his sanity and casually put a jacket over his lap. Aside for those few meals in which Liam has to excuse himself to the bathroom to take a few breaths or has to straight-up leave the hotel room while Louis is practically drooling as he orders room service, he maintains his dignity quite well.

It’s about a week before things slow down enough for Liam to really think about the fact that, beyond his few moments of ridiculous arousal levels whenever Louis eats, he is also kind of definitely in love with his best friend.

It should alarm him a lot more than it does, but it mostly makes things make more sense. Liam had always thought that people talking about friendship were missing a fundamental element of chemistry and attraction that played into it, but now Liam is starting to think that that might actually have a lot more to do with love than it does friendship. 

Sometimes, he does back and watches videos of the two of them interacting on stage or in interviews, and he wonders if it was always there and he was just oblivious, or if it was only after he and Sophia broke up that it became love. He’s not sure it matters, not when he can’t help but smile every time Louis so much as looks at him. Whatever is happening here, Liam thinks it might just be a good thing.

 

He ends up going along with Louis to have dinner with Briana and Freddie after things slow down a bit. He thinks, at first, that this is possibly the most ridiculous, romcom-worthy event of his life, him attending dinner with his best friend whom he loves and his best friend’s baby and baby mama. Then he decides not to think about it because he knows Briana and gets along with her well, and he loves babies, and this doesn’t have to be weird unless he makes it weird.

Except Liam does make it weird.

He volunteers to cook when they arrive - around five o’clock, so there’s the appropriate amount of socializing time beforehand. Briana has a few friends and family members over, also. It’s not unusual for her to have Louis over for a small dinner a few times a week, but usually there aren’t other guests, however, according to Louis’s hushed whisper to Liam as they settle down on the couch. 

Liam is the only one to volunteer to help, and Briana ends up calling him into the kitchen to help her do a few minute tasks: drain pasta, flip some chicken, take the broccoli out of the oven. 

“Louis talks about you a lot,” Briana states simply, and Liam almost drops the hot tray as his oven mitt-encased hands fumbles because. Well. That’s kind of something someone says when they think two people might be Together. And he and Louis, no matter what he wants, are not Together.

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” he says, putting the tray down on the stove, “well, we work together a lot, y’know. I’m sure he tells you, y’know, all about it. Us. Working together, that is. Um.”

“Look, I’m not blind.” She tosses a salad absentmindedly. “I know you guys are best friends, obviously, but you can’t tell me there’s nothing else there. Louis quite genuinely waxes poetic about you.” 

“Um. I don’t. Um, Know anything about that, I just--”

“‘Hewwo!’” Louis says, baby voice in full activation and holding Freddie’s little hand and waving with it while the baby sleepily ignores it. Louis continues to wave the tiny fist back and forth a few more times before breaking the act. “Your mom was wondering when dinner would be ready, and any excuse to avoid the divorced grandparents is a good excuse - isn’t that right, Freddie? Isn’t it? Your daddy knows what’s up, he knows better than to get all involved in their shit, doesn’t he?”

“Louis!”

“What?” he replies, holding out the syllable in a long, nasally whine.

“Don’t use that kind of language in front of Freddie!” Briana says, putting the salad bowl down and reaching out to take her son. “C’mon, baby, come see your favorite parent.” Louis hands him over willingly, an amused smile on his face.

Liam leans over her shoulder, cooing at Freddie’s tiny face. “Hey, little fella. You remember me, right? Uncle Liam.” He’s a little shameless with his baby talk, and yeah, it’s only been three days since he last saw Freddie, but he really wants to claim the position of favorite godparent - fuck Briana’s sister, he’s got this in the bag.

“No, seriously though, when is dinner going to be ready?” Louis asks, sniffing at the stove where the chicken in cooking. “Your parents weren’t the only ones wondering. Not all of us live off protein bars and juice cleanses.”

“Yeah, I can tell, babe,” Briana replies kindly, affectionately patting Louis’s distended stomach, right below where his Adidas t-shirt is creased under his pecs, riding up, not quite revealing any skin but still tantalizing to Liam. Liam, who suddenly feels a pang of jealousy. He knows Briana and Louis are purely platonic, neither of them desiring to be in a relationship with the other, but he still envies the casualness with which she can touch Louis. Yes, Liam can wrap an arm around his shoulders and tuck the smaller man into his side, but the idea of touching his gut-- Liam feels dizzy even imagining it.

“Oi!” Louis says, pushing her away gently. “It’s just my belated pregnancy sympathy weight.” 

He grips his belly softly on either side, caressing it. Liam tries to look at anything else. Briana catches his eye, gives him a partially-confused, partially-suggestion look as her glance flickers from Louis’s body to Liam and back again. Liam is trying not to look suspicious and failing; he can feel his cheeks flush under the warm lights of the kitchen, the heat from the oven making the back of his neck even warmer.

“I have to use the bathroom,” he says quickly and avoids Louis’s inquisitive look as he pushes past the two parents to make his way to the toilet.

 

Dinner is uneventful - unless you are inside of Liam’s head, in which case dinner is a fucking mess.

Dinner is a combination of Liam gently pushing dish after dish onto Louis’s plate and convincing him to get seconds and focusing too much on how much Louis is eating of the food he helped make and it’s like Liam is helping Louis get fat and there’s also a very loud voice in the back of his head that is vitally concerned with  
but they’re not really doing anything sexual, not really, Louis is just eating a meal, they’re all just eating a meal, but Liam is definitely more than a lot getting off on filling up Louis’s plate.

“Want some more rolls?” Liam asks innocently, lowly in the hopes that those around them wouldn’t hear, though he can’t deny the warm thrill that runs through his stomach at the thought of someone overhearing, of the other guests at the table noticing that Louis is on not seconds or thirds but 

 

“Uurp - yes, please,” Louis says, easing back in his seat and stretching his legs apart, giving his gut room to expand. 

Louis has clearly bought new clothes recently, otherwise he would be literally bursting out of the seams - Liam saw him try to squeeze into some old trousers in the hotel room the other day, the fabric getting stuck on his thick thighs. He ended up yanking them up so hard that the belt loops broke before the jeans were willings to even try getting over his generous arse. 

Still, even so, his button-down was doing little to disguise his girth, making his recent weight gain obvious. The buttons stretched, and from the side, Liam could see between some of them, a gap that allowed him to see where Louis’s undershirt rode up underneath.

“Here ya’ go,” Liam says cheerily, dropping not one but three rolls on Louis’s plate before handing him the butter. Louis loved butter, and Liam is not about to deny Louis anything with that many calories, that much fat, in it.

Louis looks like he’s not sure if he can finish them all, but ten minutes later his plate is clean.

With Liam’s guided eating, Louis does end up quite full, but Liam doesn’t feel guilty about that, not when he’s been watching Louis eat for the past week or so, and Louis definitely eats to excess nine out of ten times. Which Liam isn’t complaining about. 

What he is complaining about, however, is having to drive them home, aggressively keeping his hands on the wheel while Louis sits in the passenger seat, mindlessly playing with his belly.

It seems, at first, very unintentional, with him resting his hands on the crest of his gut, not unusual for him lately. And then he sort of grabs it by the sides and jiggles it and massages it, and Liam is gripping the wheel like it is the last pieces of his sanity. And then he-- he moves his hands under his shirt, pushing the hem up above his belly button, as he continues to massage, leaning forward slightly to adjust the radio, as if this is totally normal. And then he starts to press fingers into his wide, deep belly button, 

And that’s the final straw.

Liam pulls into the parking lot of the hotel aggressively, parking with a sharp turn of the wheel and a squeak of the tires. Louis looks mildly alarmed but doesn’t have more than a second to think about it.

Liam undoes his seatbelt, swings his left leg over the center console, and presses his lips to Louis’s, gripping his fleshy hips to support himself. It’s such a struggle, those few seconds of kissing, for Liam not to aggressively grab and squish and caress the flesh which he has been so fixated with for the past few months. Months of wondering what it felt like and suddenly it’s made available to him.

But he’s more than a little preoccupied as he relaxes into Louis’s mouth - Louis, who is kissing him back - and begins to open his mouth gently, pressing into Louis more and more and--

Louis breaks away then. “Fucking  
” He swats Liam with the back of his hand in the chest. “I’ve been waiting months for this - probably fucking years, you’re so fucking slow.” 

And then he’s kissing him again, small hands finding their way to Liam’s arse, gripping and fondling and a few fingers rest on his crack, just intimate enough to make Liam’s dick twitch. 

Liam’s dick, speaking of which, is currently pressed quite hard between Liam’s groin, forcing his  
zipper to distend, and Louis’s stomach, which is hard with packed food, yet soft and malleable and his dick is so, so interesting in there being less layers between them.

“Do you, um, want to--”

And before Liam can finish, Louis is undoing his own seatbelt, opening the passenger side door, and pulling both their bodies, less-than-elegantly out of the vehicle. Liam barely remembers to grab the keys and lock the fucking  
car before they end up in the parking garage’s elevator, heading up to the top floor of the hotel above them.

The elevator stops three times before they get to the top, but apparently other guests are too appalled by the sight of two desperate British pop stars attempting to mount each other to get in with them because they’re alone when they arrive.

Louis fumbles for his key in his back pocket, fishing out his wallet and then searching for the key card, and it’s all very cinematic, this desperate fumbling for the hotel room to get off in. Liam isn’t complaining though, and he grabs Louis’s plump arse and pulls his body flush against his own, feeling his hard belly and his hard dick and being equally aroused by both.

Louis finally shoves the card into the slot after being sufficiently distracted by Liam beginning to, very obviously, fondle his plump love handles. The two stumble inside, both attempting to push the either and almost getting stuck in the doorway given Louis’s newfound girth.

“Urgh,” Louis moans, looking a little sick. “Be gentle, man, I’m full of about eight pounds of food right now.” He braces the sides of his belly, trying to calm it.

Rubbing underneath the hem of both his shirt and undershirt, pushing them both up easily as they’re both just a little too small, Louis continues, “Wow, geez, I’m sorry, that is the opposite of hot. There are literal years building up to this, and I’m gonna ruin it because I overate. As usual.”

Liam pauses, taking in the sight of the short and stout man before him, blinking and unable to process what was just said. “Louis,” he begins slowly, “I’m not sure if you noticed, but that doesn’t exactly turn me off.”

“Doesn’t it though? I mean, not to be weird, and I’m not sure how long you’ve been waiting for this, or if this is impulsive for you, but I have spent so long casually pining after you and - and I think God’s fucking with me just a little bit by making us finally get together when I’m, well, y’know.” He whispers it. “  
”

“Me too,” Liam says rushedly, and then correct himself. “I mean, me too, it’s been years for me too, oh my god.” He steps forward, invading Louis’s space, Louis, who backs away a step, shoulders shrinking forward. “And fat? C’mon, you’re not the smallest guy anymore,” Louis flushes, “but you’re not fat. Chubby, maybe. Pudgy. Plump. Chunky.” He grabs the extra flesh at Louis’s hip, squeezing a little firmer than could be considered gentle. “Rotund, even. Rounded. Whatever you are,” he says, palms sliding around Louis’s muffin top to grip at his arse, “I very much like it.”

“God, Liam,” Louis says, hands moving to skim against Liam’s torso, unable to stand still for a second, “thank god, thank god,” his lips move against Liam’s neck, sending shivers down his spine and hot pulses to his dick, “me too, I mean, I like it, too, I mean.” His face is flushed, and he clearly doesn’t know how to get the words out, overwhelmed by the idea of confiding about this. Liam himself is on the edge of having a breakdown because this is something that he barely lets himself imagine in his mind, he can’t handle talking about it out loud, not really. The words keep spilling out, but mentally he isn’t ready for this.

“I get it, babe, I got you,” Liam says, hushed. His hands run up to Louis’s soft jaw, actions loose and easy, and he grips - no, caresses - him, guiding his head up so their lips could meet. 

It’s both an act of affection and an attempt at escape, not wanting to have to speak anymore. It is enough for Liam to know that Louis wants him back, wants him just as much as he wants him. It’s almost too much, actually, for Liam to wrap his mind around.

Their lips slide against each other, open-mouthed and warm as the lines between their mouths blur and their hands travel blindly. Louis, despite his lower ground, soon takes the upper hand, acting with confidence as he grips Liam’s hip with one small hand and tracing the area where his bum met his thighs with the other. His movements, however minute, all play out with confidence and experience. He spins them around until the back of Liam’s knees touch the edge of the bed, and then he pushes Liam down so his back is flat against the plush mattress.

Looking at Louis above him, Liam suddenly becomes overwhelming religious because nothing short of a deity could make this possible. Louis, belly taut and chest perky, standing above him, a smirk on his face and hands on hips. Louis, his thighs pressed against each other even though his feet aren’t touching, his hips pudgy and thick, and all Liam wants to do is lean up and suck gentle love bites into them. He has Louis in front of him, clothes tight and maybe-possibly-hopefully about to be removed, and all he can think is that he’ll need hours, hours in bed with this wonderful man to explore and love and worship his body.

“God…”

“No, no, you can just call me ‘Louis.’” The words come mirthfully as Louis puts one knee up on the bed, sliding the other one so it rests with his thigh between Liam’s legs, not quite touching, but ghosting against the seams. “Thanks, though, I suppose.”

Liam laughs, unable to believe all at once that he is laughing at such a dumb joke and that he is here, in front of this wonderful and awful and beautiful lad who he is just now realizing he loves tremendously, in a way that his body can barely contain.

“You idiot,” he says, instead of  
and  
and  
Louis sinks into the words easily, grinning comfortably in response. Liam thinks he got the message.

Louis, his right arm bracing him, suddenly, above Liam, lets his lips skim along Liam’s jaw line, tracing its sharp angles, brushing against stubble. Louis’s breath is heavy and warm against his neck, sending goose pimples across his body, his nerves not on fire, but ready for the spark. All of his body is alive, waiting for Louis to do more.

“Please,” he practically moans, before immediately feeling embarrassing, his face suddenly impossibly hotter and his eyes shooting open. God, why does he always have to  
something?

But Louis doesn’t seem to mind, not if the feeling of his lips smiling against his ear says anything about it. His thick thigh is solidly on the bed between Liam’s legs, barely brushing against his crotch which is, metaphorically, screaming for attention. It’s the only thing keeping Liam from bolting from the room in embarrassment that this entire thing is happening, the singular hope that something involving his penis is going to happen. 

Quick as a whip, Louis bites his ear, and before Liam can even react, he’s leaning back, his plush arse on Liam’s left leg. 

“Well, if you insist.”

And then his mouth is back on Liam’s, messy and wet in a way that Liam usually finds a little overwhelming and the slightest bit gross, but right now all he wants is to somehow press his mouth further against Louis’s, push his tongue deeper, make the movement more. 

Liam’s body is acutely attuned to exactly where Louis is touching him at any point in time. It’s as if any place of contact lights up, burns bright, and it’s all Liam can focus on. 

So right now is a little paralyzing for Liam, who suddenly has no idea how to use or move his limbs, not with Louis above him, not only kissing him, but gripping one of his arm’s aggressively, possessively, and grinding his hard-on heavily against Liam’s own. his body is so distracting, so soft, and the idea that Liam is allowed to touch it, without limits, is more than a little staggering.

Louis breaks away suddenly, breaths coming out heavy and staccato. “Am I going to have to do all the work?” He whispers it against Liam’s mouth, then sits back again.

His eyes look glazed as he makes quick work of unbuttoning his shirt, though Liam can’t help but notice him struggle with the buttons around the middle, those at the largest swell of his stomach. He has to pull the two sides of his shirt together to squeeze the button back out since it’s so tightly stretched across his stuffed gut. His undershirt is quick to follow once he gets it off.

Louis sits there, heavy above Liam, with his belly sinking over the waist of his pants so much that the fabric has folded over in the front. It doesn’t seem to be doing much better on the sides, where his love handles sit, plump and satisfied, above the waistband. God, Louis was always curvy, but this is something else. 

Then Louis decides to ruin Liam’s life. He makes eye contact, his jaw tilted up seductively and his mouth agape, and traces his hands over his gut, rubbing circles into the flesh. He grips at a chunk of it, right above the stretchmarks marking his left side, and it’s all too much. It looks to smooth and soft, so jiggly and warm, and Liam wants nothing more than to get his hands on it.

“God, Lou, I can’t--” 

Nothing’s even touching him, but he feels his dick twitch nonetheless, unreasonably aroused by the sight in front of him.

“What is it, babe? You want something?” And Louis looks so content and plump and his smirk is doing things to both Liam’s nether regions and his heart. “You wanna touch?”

He says it with a swirl of his hips, barely brushing Liam’s crotch, but anything is salvation for Liam right now, with his cock painfully suppressed by his pants, pressed hopelessly against his zipper as he waits for Louis to tell him what to do. 

“You’re gonna have to ask me, babe.”

“Can I--” his pants mangle his speech for a second, “can I touch? Touch you?”

He sounds desperate and needy, and he’d be embarrassed if it were any other situation, but he’s so hot right now and so in the moment. He’s not sure how Louis knew exactly what buttons to press, but he’s doing it exactly right. It’s so much like when Sophia would boss him around, but so much more - more intense, more arousing, more serious. He can’t put words to the difference, but he knows that right now, he’d do absolutely anything Louis said, and that’s scary.

“Gotta say the magic word,” Louis taunts, but he looks a little affected, too, his face flushed and his hands moving lower on his belly, playing with his waistband. 

“Please,” Liam breathes out, barely audible in a room of heavy breathing. “Please.” His voice is raspy and worn, thin as he forces himself to get the word, needing to get it out, more than anything else.

Suddenly, Louis is back on him, holding Liam’s hands as he leans down and pressing them against his body, permitting Liam to feel every inch of him.

Liam moves his hands mindlessly, squeezing at soft flesh, noting that below the cushiony layer of fat is a taut stomach stuffed full from the dinner than night. It’s so hot, and Liam doesn’t even know what that’s about, he’s so distracted as Louis starts kissing him again, barely giving him a chance to breathe, to catch up with what’s happening because 

That thought hits him, and his hand reacts, grabbing at the stomach below Louis’s belly button and squeezing too hard, because Louis immediately pulls back and turns his head away to belch loudly, wetly. There’s only a moment of hesitation before they both start laughing.

Liam should’ve known better than to be worried because he’s not just having sex with some big intimidating anonymous man, He’s having sex with

And that thought it startling for a whole host of other reasons.

But, he decides, with the rationality of a very-aroused, not highly-responsible man, that sounds like a problem for Future Liam.

He goes back to kissing the hell out of Louis. 

Louis slides his left leg out from between Liam’s and then immediately begins grinding against where Liam’s hard cock is tenting his pants. His hips make tiny circles, the onset and offset of pressure driving Liam absolutely crazy, even through however many layers of clothing. He’s embarrassed by how hard and how desperate he is right now, how wet he feels within his boxers. He needs out of his clothes quick.

Louis must have the same thought because a second later he’s shoving Liam’s shirt over his head, paying no attention to buttons as he kisses down his throat. “Why,” he asks between kisses, “are you. Still wearing. Clothes?”

He detaches from Liam’s neck momentarily to push the shirt off before immediately turning his attention back, focusing intently on sucking an aggressive lovebite onto Liam’s collarbone. 

Next comes Liam’s pants, and then Louis has to sit up, gripping at his own pants intently. He has to repeat what he did earlier with his shirt, pulling the two flaps together to get the button out and the zipper down, his stomach sucked in so hard it looks painful, especially with such a full tummy. He breathes out as soon as it’s down, and Liam catches sight of the harsh red indents made from his tight pants all day, the red circle where his button was. 

“See something you like?” Louis asks, swaying his hips. Liam knows he sounds confident and smart, but he can’t help but think there might be a genuine question there, a tiny note of sincerity as Louis worries over his attractiveness.

“Absolutely.” He breathes the word out slow, and it fills the room like lead. Louis blinks at him, his smile falling, and then he shifts back until his mouth is level with Liam’s crotch, his face serious.

“Oh yeah?” Liam can feel the moving air as his dick twitches under the thin layer of underwear. And then, suddenly, as if interrupting himself, Louis has his hands on Liam’s boxers, is pulling them down roughly, and then his lips are pressed gently against the head of Liam’s cock, his lower lip tracing the edge of his foreskin. “Want it, babe?”

Liam nods urgently.

“Gotta ask.” His words are stern.

“Please, can I-- can you, can you just…”

“Words.” 

“Will you, will you, please,” his voice goes low, embarrassed, “suck my cock.”

Louis smiles, the slight movement felt by Liam’s sensitive dick. “Of course, babe.”

Louis slips his lips over the tip easily enough, pushing it around in his mouth just a little with his tongue, getting it nice and wet. Liam moans. Louis pulls off suddenly and looks at Liam, his lips red and wet, literally dripping a little with spit and precome. “Now, now, babe. Gonna have to keep quiet for me, yeah?”

Without thinking twice, Liam shoves the bone at the base of his thumb into his mouth, stifling all noise. 

“That’s more like it.”

Louis goes back down onto his dick, pumping with one hand and going deeper and deeper with each thrust with his mouth. He can’t quite get all the way down, not with his lips stretched so much over the thickness of Liam’s cock, but dammit if he doesn’t try. 

Just as Liam thinks he’s there, he’s on the edge of coming, Louis pulls off. Licks up and down his shaft, breathes heavy on his cock. Liam practically spasms in reaction, unable to control his body when so close to the edge.

“Please,” he hears himself say, “please,” and it is such a begging sound, a breathy whimper that Liam would be embarrassed of if he weren’t so focused on watching Louis sit back up and move his body up so his mouth was level with Liam’s. His belly fell heavily down and squished against Liam’s flat abs, close enough that Liam could feel how tight and packed full it was. 

Kissing him first on the mouth, Louis begins to move his mouth down again, until again his mouth is now level with Liam’s dick, though now a cheeky finger makes it way back behind where his lips have once again wrapped around his cock. Gently maneuvering one finger in first and then beginning to pump it, then another, then his mouth moved deeper and his tongue moved back to flick at the head, then-- 

Liam came faster than he would’ve liked, vision going fuzzy and dazed as his head was overwhelmed with release.

“Dumbass,” Louis says, popping off after swallowing like a champ - all that experience Liam didn’t have - “you were supposed to wait til I told you to come, that’s way hotter.” 

“Um,” Liam says dumbly, post-orgasm and a little devastated by the image of how hot it would be to hold on until Louis finally gave him permission. 

“C’mon, least you can do now is return the favor,” Louis says playfully, scooting his body up so his crotch hovers above Liam’s mouth. Liam smirks.

“I dunno if I can do it like this,” he says, and to Louis’s confusion, he continues: “Y’know, with you on top. Think you might be a little too heavy, you’ve gotten pretty chunky recently, I dunno if you noticed.” He gives Louis a gentle slap on his ass, feeling it jiggle beneath his hand.

“Oi! If anyone here is getting spanked it’s you!” Louis returns. “Besides, don’t act like you don’t love it.”

He says the last part quietly, as he leaned down to kiss Liam once more, his breath touching the other man’s lips, It was gently and loving and a lot like Liam had imagined but more, so much more, and yeah, Liam thinks he could get used to this.

“Yeah. Yeah I really do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hmu on tumblr at chubbyque


End file.
